Talk of the town Page 21

  I jerked my head. “Move over. Away from that safe.”

  He took a step to his right, towards the jukebox, the china-blue eyes watching me carefully. He knew I had a gun. I lifted the two chamois bags to the desk and worked the drawstrings loose. One of them was filled with engagement rings in all sizes of stones, and the smaller one held perhaps a child’s handful of unset diamonds. I didn’t know whether they were expensive stones or not. Another drawer in the desk held several dozen men’s and women’s wrist-watches, wrapped in tissue paper. Apparently he had destroyed the gift cases as being too bulky to store. The last compartment I slid open was stacked with bundles of currency sorted by denomination and held together with rubber bands. Several thousand dollars, I guessed. You wondered how many times he’d counted it.

  I stood up. He regarded me with a conspiratorial, but simple-minded expression on the fat baby face. “You know, I bet you an’ me could work out a dicker.”

  “Yes?” I asked. This should be interesting to hear.

  “Why, shore. Them po-lice has got you treed like a coon in a holler snag. You just ain’t goin’ to get out of here, and when they catch you, that Redfield’s goin’ to pistol-whup you to death. But suppose I was to take you out in my truck?” There was a pause, precisely timed, and then he added, “Even give you a whole pocketful of that money to take along.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  This was the second level, I thought—Talley the trader. It lay somewhere between the low-comedy yokel with a face like a lewd baby, and the real Talley, the coldblooded and deadly hoodlum. Pearl was an apt name for him; pearls were built up in layers. Or maybe there wasn’t any actual Talley at all; if you stripped off all the succeeding layers, at the bottom there wouldn’t be anything but an elemental force, a sort of disembodied and symbolic act of devouring. No wonder he was good at mimicry and spoke in dialects; he wasn’t sure who he was himself.

  He couldn’t understand me. “Don’t you want to get away?”

  “No,” I said. I doubt there’s any way I can explain it to you, but all I want is to see you in jail.”

  “Shucks. Ain’t no hard feelin’s.”

  I see. Trying to drive a woman insane or wreck her health is just routine business strategy?”

  “Oh, I didn’t reckon she’d go real nutty or anything. I jest figured if she got a bellyful of the place she’d sell out cheap. You know how it is, you gotta be on your toes in real estate.”

  “What about trying to kill me with a shotgun?”

  He grinned slyly. “Hell, you can’t prove nobody tried to kill you. You’re still alive.”

  I realized I was up against unanswerable logic. There was no harm done, because he’d missed. Why be churlish about it?

  “Which one of you killed Langston?” I asked.

  “Why, I don’t know nothin’ about that,” he said innocently. “Look, let’s talk over this dicker a little more.”

  “Knock it off, Pearl,” I said. “I know what you people did that night, and the proof’s right there in front of you. I’ve already got Frankie. All I’ve got to do now is call the F.B.I. They’ll be glad to get their hands on you.”

  He was looking at something over the door. I whirled. Cynthia Redfield was standing just inside it. She was wearing a dark blue dress and sandals, and was carrying a flat bag in her left hand and holding a short-barreled .38 in the other. It was a corny pose, and might have been ridiculous if it had been anybody else, but wasn’t ridiculous on her at all. I knew she was deadly enough to mean it.

  She came on into the room. “Turn around, Mr. Chatham,” she ordered. I turned, raging at myself, and scared. I heard her walk up until she was about three feet behind me, and then she said, “Now, take off your jacket and toss it over there on that sofa.”

  She couldn’t miss. I did as she said. “Now, get over there and stand by Pearl.” I walked over and stood by the safe, facing her.

  She stared coolly at Pearl, and said, “I thought you might walk right into it, so I parked up by the road. I tried to head you off in town, but they said you’d just got a phone call and left. Then I tried to get Frankie, and found out he’d also disappeared. Didn’t it occur to any of you that Chatham was doing it, trying to panic you?”

  I glanced sideways at Pearl and saw he was watching her nervously. For some reason he didn’t appear as happy as he should be at this change in the picture. “Well, it was Trudy that called—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said crisply. I don’t have much time.” She stopped to give him a taunting smile, and went on, I see you have the safe open. That’s nice, isn’t it? We can have an accounting now, after all these months.”

  Pearl said nothing, and it began to dawn on me at last that I wasn’t the only one being threatened by that gun.

  “Come on, Pearl,” she taunted. “Tell me again how much was in those safes when you and Frankie opened them. Remember, all the paper money in one burned up when the torch set it on fire. And the other had only about two thousand dollars’ worth of cheap junk in it. Remember, Pearl?”

  He swallowed uneasily.

  She walked to the desk, motioning for us to move back. Setting her handbag on it, she poked her finger into the openings of the two chamois bags. A few engagement rings spilled out on the desk.

  “You got to listen—” Pearl began.

  She cut him off coldly. “How did you get Frankie to lie about it, and cheat him out of his share at the same time? More blackmail, Pearl?”

  “Listen, you got it all wrong,” he explained earnestly. I had to keep it so none of it wouldn’t git sold till it was safe. I was goin’ to tell you. Honest. You don’t reckon I’d cheat my own kin—?”

  “Shut up, you filthy pig!” she lashed at him. “In the end, you got it all, didn’t you. You always do. By lying, and blackmail, and extortion. You couldn’t leave us alone, could you? All we wanted to do was break into just one of those stores to get enough money to go away together, but you had to force your way into it and make a production of it. Kill a man and burn up part of a town so you could carry off the safes. You’re never satisfied, are you? You couldn’t even leave that woman alone so she’d sell out and go away so the thing would quiet down and be forgotten. Not you, you dirty pig! You had to go to work on her so you could buy the place for nothing. So you made her too stubborn to sell, and you didn’t even have sense enough to leave this man alone so he’d stay out of it. And then you let him make a fool of you. Well, I can still get out, Pearl, and I’m going to. And I’m going to take everything that’s in that safe. I’d have killed you long ago if I could have thought of a way to get it open.”

  She could get away with it, if she got back home before she was missed. With both of us dead and the jewelry gone there’d be no evidence of any kind and nothing to point to her. Then I remembered Georgia Langston. Cynthia apparently didn’t know she was here. She’d be safe if she stayed out of sight.

  Almost at the same instant I thought I heard a faint sound like the scrape of a shoe in the hall, and involuntarily looked towards the door. A slender hand had come around the edge of the frame, groping for the light switch just inside. But Pearl was facing that way too. He stared, too obviously, and Cynthia Redfield started to turn. Then the exploring fingers touched the switch and the lights went off.

  She pulled the trigger through sheer reflex, but I was already diving towards the floor. Pearl hit me and we crashed down together. I kicked him off me and rolled, aiming for the spot where Cynthia Redfield had been standing. I missed her and swung my arms. One hand brushed the cloth of her skirt. The gun crashed again. I lunged at her and missed completely. Then Pearl slammed into me. We fell against a wall and he had me pinned under him. I heard a collision in the hallway, somebody cried out, and the screen door slammed. She was gone; I’d never catch her out there in the night.

  Pearl had a knee in my chest and was swinging like a madman. A fist caught me just above the ear and rocked my head back against the wall. He had th
e range now and hit me again. One arm was pinned under me and I couldn’t get any weight behind the other when I landed on him. A fist crashed against the side of my jaw. It rocked me, and I realized that one or two more like it would knock me out. I put everything into one last heave, and came up, toppling him into the darkness beside me. We rolled, locked together and straining, and hit the legs of the flimsy card table. It collapsed, dumping magazines and books on us. I thought I heard a car somewhere, but it was impossible to be sure above the hoarse sound of our breathing.

  We threshed through the wreckage of the card table and the slithering and unstable carpeting of magazines. I found his throat with my left hand and swung with the right. Pain went up my arm, but he grunted. I swung it again and felt him go limp. I pushed myself away and collapsed, too weak to get up. Somewhere behind me a match flared, and then the lights came on. I pushed myself to a sitting position and turned. Kelly Redfield was standing just inside the door.

  He was a good ten feet away. There was nothing I could do but sit and stare at him. His face was pale and intensely still, and the eyes deadly. There was no gun in his hand, but the short khaki jacket was open in front and I could see one in the shoulder holster under his left arm. He said nothing. There was no sound in the room except that of my breathing. His right hand came up and pulled the gun away from the spring clip that held it.

  “All right, Chatham,” he said. His voice was so tight there was no expression in it whatever.

  Then I saw his eyes flick away from my face for the first time as they glanced towards the open safe and the desk beside it. Something held them. I turned involuntarily and looked. On the desk one of the chamois bags was still pulled open and light glittered on the stones in the rings. And beside it was the maroon leather of Cynthia Redfield’s handbag.

  He pulled his eyes away from it and tried to do it anyway. He raised the gun and cocked it. Sweat stood out on his face like beads of glycerin. Then the muzzle wavered, and he let his arm fall to his side. He was motionless for what seemed like a long time, and at last he raised the gun and put it back in the holster. He walked over to the desk and stood with his back to me as he picked up the phone.

  I let my head drop on my forearms, braced across my knees, and closed my eyes. I was shaking all over, and limp.

  I heard him dialing. “Redfield,” he said. “Call off the search for Chatham. But send somebody to pick up Frankie Crossman—”

  “Frankie’s out here,” I said without looking up.

  He gave no indication he had heard me, other than to change his orders. “Send Mitchell out here. Pearl Talley’s place. To pick up Frankie Crossman and Talley for suspicion of murder.”

  He paused, as if he had been interrupted, and then said savagely, “No, that’s not all! Goddammit, I’ll tell you when I’m through—”

  I looked up then. He reached slowly over and picked up the purse with his free hand, and tilted its contents out onto the desk. For an instant he stared down, stony-eyed, at the little accumulation of feminine articles, the tiny wadded handkerchief, comb, lipstick, mirror, and paper tissues, and then he probed through it with his finger and pushed something to one side and looked at it. It was an ignition key.

  “And tell Mitchell to bring enough men to search the area,” he said curtly. “One of them got away on foot.”

  I looked away. Georgia Langston was standing in the doorway with tears swimming in her eyes. I pushed myself erect some way, grabbed my jacket, and went out into the hall and reached for her. She came to me with a little cry.

  * * *

  Calhoun arrived a few minutes later. We were sitting on the porch, smoking cigarettes and holding hands in the darkness. “I tried to call you,” he said, “and warn you he was on his way out here. It was my fault. I tried to tell him about Pearl and Frankie and calling in the Federal boys. He caught on to where you were, and tore out.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. I told him what had happened. He went inside.

  More cars arrived, and the place was full of Deputies, most of whom I’d never seen before. They left the headlights on to illuminate the yard. Magruder and Mitchell came over, glanced at me, and went inside to talk to Redfield.

  “I tried to catch her,” Georgia said. “I followed her outside after she ran into me, but she got away.”

  “She had a gun,” I said.

  “I know. But it seemed to me she was our only chance.”

  “She would have been,” I said, “except she left her purse. Incidentally, remind me to thank you sometime for putting out those lights.”

  The screen door opened and Redfield came out, followed by Mitchell. “You’re in charge,” Redfield said. “Take over. Search the place, inventory that stuff, and when you’ve got ‘em all, bring ‘em in and book ‘em. I’ll be at home.”

  Mitchell nodded to me. “What about Chatham?”

  “There’s no charge,” Redfield said curtly. “He can go any time he wants.”

  I stood up, took the gun from the pocket of my jacket, and held it out to him butt-first. He accepted it without a word and dropped it in his jacket. Turning abruptly away, he walked across the yard, got into the cruiser, and drove away, picking up speed as he shot out towards the road.

  I sat down. Georgia watched the red lights turn into the road and disappear. “Couldn’t one of you have said something?”

  “Said what?” I asked.

  “Yes, I see what you mean.”

  Calhoun came out. He lit a cigarette, and we watched the flashlights searching out through the timber. “She still had the gun, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You haven’t heard a shot?”

  “No,” I said. “And if she hasn’t by now, she probably won’t.”

  “More than likely she’s just sitting up there in the car.”

  I thought about it. It made me shiver.

  “They’ve got Frankie and Pearl spilling pretty well,” he said. “They had Strader’s car with them that night, besides the truck, so they split up on the way back. They brought the safes on out here, and butchered ‘em open the next day. They claim they didn’t go to Redfield’s house at all. Sounds logical.”

  “But she and Strader had some of the stuff?” I asked. “Things that weren’t in the safe?”

  “That’s right,” he replied. “You had it pegged all the time. She told them that was the way it happened. He came around the house and started to walk into the kitchen. Strader was outside, getting some more of the stuff. All he saw was a silhouette, and thought it was Redfield. There were some watches and silver and things like that right in plain sight on the table. And a dead truck driver lying in the weeds behind a highway lunch-stand up in Georgia.”

  Georgia Langston rose and walked a few steps away, looking off into the darkness.

  “I’m sorry,” Calhoun said.

  “It’s all right,” she replied. “Bill said it would be that way.”

  He stood up. “Well, I’ve got no business out here. And I guess you’ve had all of it you want, now that it’s cleared up. I’ll give you a lift to your car.”

  “We won’t be able to find it till daylight,” I said. “It’s way off the road in the timber.”

  “Then let me drive you home. You can get it tomorrow.”

  I looked at her.

  She smiled. “Yes. Let’s go home.”

  * * *

  It was nearly five. We were sitting in the living-room drinking coffee. I’d gone over to my room and showered and shaved my battered face as well as I could, and put on some clean clothes. She was wearing dark pajamas and a dressing gown and looked very lovely, but tired. The phone rang. I went out and answered it.

  It was Calhoun. They got her,” he said. “About an hour ago. She made a full confession.”

  “She admit having any idea why Langston came over there?”

  “She says no. But I doubt that part of it.”

  “So do I,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”


  I went back and told her.

  “I’m sorry, Georgia,” I said. “But there wasn’t any other way it would fit, from the first. He went there hoping something might happen. You see, he could just knock on the door and ask for Redfield, and play the ball as it bounced. But look at it this way—obviously, she’d made a play for him before. He was forty-seven, and they had just told him to get in his wheel-chair and watch the game from the sidelines the rest of his life, so maybe it was a gesture.”

  She interrupted me. “Bill.”

  “What?”

  “Why all the apology and explanation? Doesn’t it occur to you I might want to try to thank you for what you’ve done? It was a nightmare, and you ended it for me.”

  I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  She nodded. “It hurts, yes. But I don’t expect to go around the rest of my life posing as a tragic figure. Listen, why don’t we go outside? It should be just about dawn now, and we can see exactly where we want to put that swimming pool.”

  We went out and sat on the edge of the concrete porch. Day was beginning. I tossed a pebble. “Center of the swimming pool right there. How does it look?”

  “It’s a beautiful pool,” she said dreamily. Then she asked, “You mean it? You really want to stay and do it?”

  “What do you think?” I said. I grinned, or tried to. “Let’s say I’ve given too much of my face to this cause to drop it now.”

  She touched a few bruises with her fingertips. I was hoping you would. But do you know why I asked? This is the day they were supposed to have your car ready.”

  I turned, and we stared at each other for an instant. It was impossible, but she was right.

  She gave a little smothered laugh, and went on in a faint voice. “It’s inevitable. Bill. Some day somebody’s going to ask you what on earth you did to pass the time, stuck in a little place like this for three whole days.”